A stomach-churning twist on classic frozen treats, 100 stabilized ice pops made from Taiwan’s polluted lakes, rivers, beaches and ports feature an unsettling array of sewage found in public waters.

Each of these edible-scale popsicles was first frozen then preserved in polyester resin and wrapped in packaging. Diverse flavors feature ingredients such as plastic, arsenic, mercury and metal. Unappetizing titles include Yang-tzu-chou Drainage, The Large Ditch in Tianwei, and New Huwei Creek.

Some even look tasty at a glance, like some kind of hand-crafted iced delight. But the game of choosing something to try quickly becomes a nightmare of deciding which might be least terrible. Surely one without bits of cork, bottle caps or candy wrappers would be better, but then again: invisible poisons could be much worse.

Art students Hung I-chen, Guo Yi-hui, and Cheng Yu-ti from the National Taiwan University of the Arts concocted titled their line of less-than-delicious designs “Polluted Water Popsicles.” Their work was nominated for the Young Pin Design Award and featured in the New Generation of Design Exhibition this May at the Taipei World Trade Center.

Litterbugs usually like to keep their polluting crimes a dirty little secret – but Hong Kong Cleanup wanted to show them that there is no way to hide from the all-seeing eyes of technology. They created an environmental campaign called “The Faces of Litter” which used DNA phenotyping to create portraits of people who littered.

The rather Orwellian campaign illustrated garbage police collecting refuse with traces of DNA from around Hong Kong. In the campaign video, cigarette butts, coffee cups, and even a used condom were picked up and taken to a lab for analysis.

Once the DNA had been isolated, scientists used a program called Snapshot DNA Phenotyping to create a realistic 3D image of the litterbug. These faces could then be displayed in public places as a shame campaign to deter future littering.

The technology involved in this concept is indeed available, but The Faces of Litter was only an awareness-raising campaign. Photos were indeed displayed at Hong Kong transit stations, but they weren’t of real criminals – the faces were created using the DNA of volunteers.

The Hong Kong Cleanup project highlights the fact that littering is out of control in Hong Kong despite fines equivalent to $200 US. The video warns would-be trash droppers: “Don’t let it be your face,” hopefully inspiring them to think twice before flicking a cigarette butt or flinging an empty coffee cup.

Steel shipping containers are the temporary homes of countless consumer items being transported all around the world. Items are packed into the cargo containers in their country of origin, then shipped to wherever they’re destined to be sold. Once they’re emptied at the appropriate port, many of these cargo containers simply sit around empty or get melted down for re-use. But recently, they’ve found new lives as homes and other types of buildings. Perhaps the two most appealing aspects of building with shipping containers are the affordability and the green construction factor: shipping container homes are far less expensive than new-material traditional homes, and reusing them rather than melting them down significantly reduces the carbon footprint of the steel containers.

But how does it feel to live in a shipping container? Most people who have built this type of home say that they’re sturdy and modern, and when several containers are connected the building can be just about any size, from a single-container loft to a multi-container family home. Some residents of shipping container homes and offices choose to display the origins of their buildings by leaving the facades alone. Others disguise the shipping containers by applying exteriors that make the recycled buildings look just like any other. Whether they’re rough around the edges or covered in cutting-edge design, shipping container homes are definitely going places. Click the thumbnails below for more images of and information on these amazing designs:

Welcome to part two of our fanbase artist showcase.  We often get emails from artists wanting to have their works showcased on the site and therefore we have started this monthly feature to give back to our incredibly talented community. Please enjoy the part two of these features and if you would like your work to be featured, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Steely Hieroglyphics from Frank Plant

Frank Plant is an American sculptor based in Barcelona. Using welded steel as his principal medium, Plant has created these studies of compositions of everyday objects and activities. Frank is a teacher at the Metafora Tallers de Art Contemporani in Barcelona and his work is in both private and public collections across Europe and North America.

Chernobyl in HDR from Timm Suess

Timm Suess is a Swiss photographer who took his first photograph at the age of 5. Tim is fascinated with the battle between man-made structures and nature’s decay process and shoots all his photos purely in digital and using natural light. He believes that, “You only have one chance to take a picture – if you miss it and go back, it will be gone.”

Urban “Multiscapes” from Pim Palsgraaf

Pim Palsgraaf is a 30-year old artist and sculptor from The Netherlands with a love-hate relationship with the industrial surroundings of his studio in Rotterdam. The “Multiscape” sculptures above show the outgrowths of urban architecture as tumors draped over stuffed animals and symbolize the opposition of culture and nature.

Thinking Green Creatively from David Macaluso

David Macaluso has been utilizing used motor oil into paintings as his personal brand of recycling since 2005. This on going art project is currently part of an exhibition exploring fossil fuel addiction at Athens Institute for Contemporary art and focuses on the critical environmental and energy issues of our time.

Half Moon Bay from Ksenya Serova

Ksenya Serova has always been fascinated by the places that we abandon and leave behind. And as a result of that fascination has managed to photograph a great collection of photos of abandoned places on her site.

Sarah Turner’s ReDesign: Drink Bottle Lampshades

Sarah Turner’s eco lampshades, made from waste drinks bottles and recycled card, were recently exhibited in a competition at the Ideal Home Show, London.  With some clever cutting Sarah has mastered the art of turning waste drinks bottles into decorative shapes, which form the basis of her beautiful ceiling, table and floor lamps.

Greg’s First Art Car

This is “That Car,” a 1990 Mazda Miata. That Car started off as Greg’s Summer Artcar, a temporary interactive children’s project based on the designs of Susan Sturgill. After 2 years of 2 dimensional, interactive designs, created by 100’s of children, Ramona Moon introduced Greg to the magic of gluing. That Car has been featured in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Burlington Free Press, Columbus Dispatch and more. It is now part of the permanent collection of the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.

Green architecture comes in many forms though lately it seems like these forms are stranger than ever. Urban skyscraper farms? Floating eco-cities? Glowing solar towers? Turbine-driven skyscrapers? Magnetically levitated wind collectors? Where does it end?! With all of these emerging green technologies it seemed an appropriate time to take a look at seven of the most amazing real and conceptual designs currently at the forefront of ecological innovation. These examples push the limits of ecological architecture and contemporary urban design discourse. [This article created with generous assistance from Agustin Otegui as part of our series on Green Art, Design and Technology).

The so-called Lilypad Project is perhaps the most fantastical of these green wonders and certainly the farthest from being built but is too amazing a concept not to mention. The idea is to create a series of floating self-sufficient ocean-going eco-city islands. Each one would be able to house 50,000 residents and would support a great deal of biodiversity. Collecting pools located in their centers would gather and filter water for use on board. These would be places for adventurers and refugees alike as water levels rise around the world and threaten many, particularly island, habitats.

The most impressive feature of the new Bahrain World Trade Center is, no doubt, the three massive wind turbines situated between the two towers comprising the main building. Each of these 80-foot turbines projects from a bridge between towers. The shape of the towers themselves channels and accelerates air moving between them which will help the building generate even more power. It is by far the largest wind-powered design incorporated into a massive building project to date.

The MagLev Wind Turbine is a big step forward in the world of wind power. By using magnetism to levitate the blades friction is eliminated and more power can be produced without any additional power expense (since the magnetics require no energy to run). The MagLev has a low threshold velocity for producing energy, could theoretically survive for centuries and can power up to 750,000 homes. Though the initial investment involved hundreds of millions of dollars the payoff is potentially huge.

This glowing solar tower looks like something straight out of the Bible. Glowing bright white it sticks out like a sore (giant’s) thumb in the middle of the rolling countryside in Spain. So what is it? Well, it is Europe’s first commercial power station to harness the energy of the sun. How does it work? The sun’s rays are all directed at a single point of the tower and turn water at that point into steam. The steam in turn moves through turbines and generates energy. A strange but very functional process.

Urban skyscraper farms are still purely conceptual for now but are amazing theoretical propositions. They would provide locally grown food in densely packed urban centers. Some such designs incorporate elaborate rainwater reuse systems and other sustainable strategies intended to minimize their environmental impact and maximize their productivity. However, they are massive in scale and would cost a great deal to build. This huge initial outlay is part of what is keeping them out of production.

The Dongtan Eco-City is designed to be the world’s first not only an environmentally but also a “socially, economically and culturally” sustainable city. The site is over 50 square miles in size and will be split between agricultural and urban areas. The city relies on its own wind and solar energy as well as organic farming strategies. Public transportation will be entirely emissions free. In many ways this is a prototype for large-scale city planning within a fully eco-friendly mindset.

The so-called Lighthouse skyscraper is a 1000-foot-tall office skyscraper that is designed to use about half the water and energy of a typical high-rise building. The tower design employs solar energy collection and wind farming techniques coupled with strategies to reduce the use of and improve recovery of energy and water within the building. If/when built, this building will be a kind of working prototype for future green design in massive urban construction.

While these projects are extremely impressive in terms of their scope, scale and innovation many of them are expensive and difficult to replicate. They are, in short, large-scale solutions to a pervasive problem that exists on all scales with respect to sustainability in design. So what is the answer? Well, some designers have come up with alternatives that are meant to work at varying scales and within more limited budgets. Agustin Otegui’s Nano Vent-Skin is a perfect example.

What is it? In short it is a structure that acts like a skin. It is composed of mini wind turbines made out of micro organisms which generate energy from wind and sunlight. NVS was born as a small scale alternative after seeing all the gigantic projects (like those mentioned above) being built around the world. Where it seems that in order to be green you have to think big and build something impressively huge. This concept tries to make Architects and Designers think on a smaller scale and apply it to existing buildings, houses and structures or even tunnels and barriers to generate energy.

Next: 15 More Green Wonders

More Underground, Underwater and Other Wonders of the World

7 Underground Wonders of the World
7 (More!) Underground Wonders of the World
7 Underwater Wonders of the World
7 Island Wonders of the World
7 Engineering Wonders of the World
7 Urban Wonders of the World
7 Wonders of Modern Green Design and Technology

Amazing Abandoned Cities, Places and Property of the World

7 Abandoned Wonders of the World
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of the World
7 Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (Even More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 Abandoned Wonders of the European Union